Solutions From The Ground
UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK CITY – It definitely was a star-studded cast, led by Bill and Hilary Clinton, and supported by the head of the World Bank, numerous government ministers, the President of Haiti himself, leaders of the private sector, and the mayor of Montreal. And the results of today donor’s conference appeared promising – at least by way of pledges, an important distinction since only 30% of aid promises made to Haiti prior to the earthquake were actually kept.Canada’s role was prominent of the over 100 countries present. CIDA minister Bev Oda pledged an additional $400 million in aid and debt relief and committed to CIDA staying involved as one of the key countries contributing to the rebuilding of Haiti. The entire day was an impressive display of human compassion. Bill Clinton especially was adroit at teasing even more funds from the various players, but he’s uniquely qualified for the task as the UN Envoy. What if a similar disaster transpired elsewhere? With no one overall body directing the entire relief and development effort, who would be able to bring about this kind of coordination? When I asked Clinton about that, he wondered as to the possibility of using the Haiti response model to bring into being just such a body. Time will tell.Despite the celebrity culture swirling around during the day, I found myself most moved by the Haitian civil society leaders, who took me through some of their frustrations. Included in the overall response effort after undertaking numerous focus groups of average Haitians themselves, the civil society leaders laid out some very real concerns and priorities. They’ve been here before and they’ve been neglected on those previous occasions.Their demands were hardly excessive, and in fact were quite sensible. Among them:
- Bring about an end of exclusion in such plans for average Haitians
- Provide more local management of public services as opposed to centralized approaches used in previous responses
- Utilize development funds to provide education to all sectors of Haitian society – a vital point considering that 25% of Haitian children don’t go to school at all
- Finally dedicate funds to the development of a communication infrastructure for average Haitian families
Their key demand, however, involved agriculture and the need to heighten production through properly invested aid dollars. They have a point. It only made sense when they expressed their frustration and not even being able to grow enough food to feed their own people. Farmers have been neglected in past efforts, they say, and they point to the trend of more people preferring to work off the land than search endlessly for jobs in the city. With some 700,000 people presently migrating outside of the earthquake zone, the need for effective rural development now becomes a primary factor in the nation’s recovery.In the end, these are the voices that should really be hearkened to. Bill Clinton pointed out that, except for perhaps India, Haiti had the highest number of homegrown NGOs per capita than any other nation in the world. Clearly the people have been doing their work, banding together, and attempting to solve their own problems at the local community level. Any reconstruction plan worth the name must place such groups front and centre in the rebuilding effort.During the lunch break, I watched hundreds of people surround the Clintons, while these same civil society leaders gathered in a corner by themselves witnessing it all. My conversation with them was the best part of the conference. Until we gather supportively around them, we’ll never get this right.